Gently with the Innocents

by Alan Hunter

  ‘When did you see him last?’

  ‘Breakfast, I reckon . . . what’s the trouble?’

  Gissing didn’t answer.

  They clumped and kicked their way up the stairs. Scoles brought out a bunch of keys. The second one did it. They entered a chill atmosphere of bacon-grease and gas. Gissing, flicking a torch around, could find no light-switch, only a gas-bracket with a round, dirty glass. He hesitated, then struck a match. The lamp lit with a pop. Gissing seemed surprised.

  ‘Mod cons, sir,’ Scoles ventured.

  Gissing grunted, staring around him. It was a smallish room with dadoed walls, cream above, dark green below. It contained an obsolete gas-stove and a chipped sink, a table, chairs and kitchen cabinet. At one end stood a painted cupboard. Pin-ups were taped along the walls.

  Not much of a place to call home . . . yet it had a sort of sluttish cosiness. A gas-fire was fitted, and near it was wedged an old easy-chair, a newspaper lying on it. No TV, but a cheap radio, and a pile of paperback pornography on the cupboard.

  Sometimes, you felt, Colkett put his feet up and gave the pubs a miss for the evening.

  Did he bring a woman back?

  Gently shoved open the door that led from the kitchen to the room behind. Another gas-bracket! Gently lit it. It revealed a room that was a twin of the other. A double bed, none too clean, and with a solitary, soiled pillow. A big, old-fashioned wardrobe. Painted chest-of-drawers. A varnished dressing-table jammed across the window. More pin-ups were plastered over the walls and, facing the bed, an obscene drawing. The room smelt doggy. If women came here they were rough ones, soused with drink.

  A lonely man, that was Colkett. His job at the warehouse would exactly suit him. Aloof, probably friendless, inviting nobody up to his grubby retreat. A bit of pub company, some inept fumbling, then back to the sanctuary over Hallet’s. Then, with pop music blaring, the sexual fantasies that stayed a dream.

  A killer? Possibly . . . but it’d be a woman. In a panic, he’d try to talk his way out.

  Gently went back into the kitchen.

  ‘Having any luck?’

  Gissing and Scoles were exploring the cupboard. Out of it had come a medley of rubbish but also a stack of small orange-and-black cartons. They contained car light-bulbs.

  ‘Pinched,’ Gissing said. ‘He’s been knocking these off from the warehouse.’

  Gently shrugged. Every trade had its perks. Colkett probably wasn’t getting very fat out of those.

  He moved around the kitchen carefully. Really, it offered very little concealment. The cupboard, the cabinet, the easy chair, the cooker and possibly the case of the radio. He tried the chair. It had a loose seat-cushion. He felt around in the fluff beneath it. Two halfpennies, sixpence, a bent nailfile and evidence of addiction to liquorice allsorts. The rest of the chair was honest stuffing. The radio and cooker were equally innocent. Scoles, foraging in the cabinet, found a box of tyre-levers, but they were obviously loot and not tools of a trade.

  ‘How about the floor, sir?’

  They stared at the floor. It was covered with lino which had been tacked down. Gissing stooped and fumbled half-heartedly at a join, then suddenly seemed to remember they hadn’t dealt with the bedroom.

  Gently stood by the door watching, sure now that the search would be a frost. Colkett was a thief, that’s all they were learning – a thief who perhaps stole for quasi-sexual thrills. A little man . . . a little thief. If he’d known about the gold, would he have dared to steal it? No . . . that single coin was more Colkett’s mark, grabbed up off the floor when no eye was on him.

  In the wardrobe Gissing found a new steelyard, and beneath the bed a case of spanners. Under the pillow was hidden a notebook. Scoles opened it and blushed. Eskimo Nell . . .

  Hallet was lurking in his doorway when they came down the steps again. He looked sharply to see if they were carrying anything. Then he whistled a bar of Colonel Bogey. Gissing stopped.

  ‘Where’s the bog?’

  ‘The bog?’ Hallet gaped. ‘Can’t you wait, then?’

  ‘The bog that Colkett uses,’ Gissing said patiently. Hallet leered and pointed across the yard.

  Scoles was assigned to search the bog: Gently and Gissing returned to the Wolseley. Gissing lumped down heavily in the driving-seat, shoved a fag in his mouth and lit it. He breathed smoke wearily.

  ‘So it’ll be the warehouse.’

  ‘You’ll need more men,’ Gently shrugged.

  Already, he noticed, he was opting out of an exercise he judged to be futile. He wanted Colkett . . . oh yes! – but he was no longer reckoning him as a possible killer. Vital now was what Colkett knew, not what they might turn up at the warehouse.

  ‘There’s D.C. Abbots . . .’

  ‘You can’t spare him. Grabbing Colkett is first priority.’

  ‘Colkett’s got to come back here.’

  ‘He could spot the constable. And don’t forget he’s flush with cash.’

  Gissing breathed more smoke, slow, tired, no doubt with the warehouse before his eyes. One might strike lucky, say in the office, but other than that . . . it would need an army.

  ‘It’s this bloody snow . . .’

  ‘Leave it till morning.’

  ‘I don’t know . . . I still think . . .’

  ‘Let’s talk to Colkett. That’s what matters.’

  Gissing sat silent, just the smoke going.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE SNOW WON. They drove back to the office along streets as empty as streets of a ghost-town. In effect the snow had eased, but it was lying now so thick that the Wolseley’s wheels were continually spinning. Above, a black sky pressed heavily, suggesting the break was only temporary. Plenty more up there! By morning, Cross would probably be beleaguered.

  At the office two messages were waiting. They came from D.C. Abbotts and the Broome constable – Colkett wasn’t on the evening train, and the Norchester bus had failed to arrive. The Broome constable had done some phoning and had located the bus at Tattishall Crossroads. It was stuck in a drift. Its twenty-one passengers were being given shakedowns in Tattishall school. The constable had talked to his colleague at Tattishall and had passed on a description of Colkett.

  Gissing rang Tattishall. No go – they didn’t have a passenger resembling Colkett. He rang the railway station. There was one more train. As far as they knew, the line was clear.

  Gissing hung up and gloomed for some moments.

  ‘Reckon he’s painting the town,’ Scoles said. ‘All that dough. It’s burning his pocket. Reckon he’ll come back juiced, on the eleven.’

  ‘Suppose he picked up a tart . . .’

  ‘Not him,’ Scoles said. ‘He’s one of those blokes who’d be scared of a Judy.’

  ‘If he knows we’re after him . . .’

  ‘How could he know, sir?’

  Gissing shook his head. ‘But I wish we’d got him.’

  Gently hung on for another hour, then hunger drove him back to the George. Colkett would turn up. He wasn’t a professional who knew how to vanish into the scenery. He could have thumbed a lift and got stuck, or merely have decided to stay in Norchester. Some transport doss-house . . . perhaps, at that moment, he was stuffing himself with egg and chips.

  It was too late for dinner, but the manager’s wife fixed Gently up with a plate of stew. At ten p.m. Sir Daynes rang to get his bulletin from Gently.

  ‘Was going to call in – but this bloody snow! Had to pinch a Land Rover to get home.’

  Then, at 11.10, Gissing. Colkett hadn’t been on the train.

  Not on the train; nor, apparently, in any hotel or doss-house in Norchester. Gissing, who’d stayed on the job all night, met Gently in the morning with bruised-looking eyes.

  Norchester had checked. There was no hair of Colkett. Nobody had seen him since he’d sold the coin. They’d kept a man on the station and another on the buses, but no Colkett. The snow had swallowed him.

  ‘Hmn,’ Gently said. ‘And he hasn’t
been home.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then he’s probably stuck in the snow.’

  ‘I’ve been ringing all night, sir.’

  ‘That wouldn’t find him. Not if he spent the night in a vehicle.’

  Gissing drank glumly from a mug of cocoa, tiredness oozing from his sagging body. He’d let Scoles go. The young man, fresh, stood staring concernedly at his senior.

  ‘The trouble is . . . we’re cut off. They reckon the ploughs won’t shift it today.’

  ‘So – we’ll have to be patient.’

  ‘But all the time . . .’

  He shrugged and dipped again into the mug.

  Gently echoed the shrug. Where was the hurry? If Colkett was stuck, he couldn’t be running. And probably the first person to reach him would be a village bobby, with Colkett’s description. Nothing to do now but wait.

  ‘You’d better take a spell,’ he said.

  Gissing stared at him, puffy-eyed. ‘There’s still the warehouse.’

  ‘Give me some men. I’ll look it over.’

  Gissing hesitated, then shook his head. ‘I’d sooner do it myself, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some ideas . . . that stuff he was pinching. It’s up to us to look into that.’

  Colkett was his chummie, that’s what he was saying. Gently had stopped taking Colkett seriously. It might even be he would skimp the job of taking apart those daunting premises. Gently grinned.

  ‘Before you go, I’d like a run-down of your Thingoe Road clients.’

  ‘Thingoe Road . . .’

  ‘My hunch. Just in case we don’t nail Colkett.’

  The list was disappointingly short. Over the last five years there’d been little trouble in Thingoe Road – two embezzlements, some minor housebreaking, one g.b.h., twelve domestic disputes. A semi-habitual named Betts lived at 37, Brewster Drive, but he was currently doing a twelve-month stretch for receiving a stolen vehicle. Of the minor offenders only three had jobs which took them into the town centre, and one of those had been questioned by Scoles and could be more or less eliminated.

  ‘Any thoughts about these?’

  They hadn’t; Gently pocketed the list and rose to go. But as he reached the door the phone went and he hung on to hear the message.

  ‘For you . . . Tom Bressingham.’

  Gently took the phone from Gissing.

  ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Superintendent? Listen . . . I’ve just solved your problem!’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘All of them!’ Bressingham gave a breathless little chuckle. ‘And do you know something? The answer was in the house – all the time.’

  Bressingham couldn’t wait for Gently: he came up Water Street looking for him. They met amid the clanging of snow-shovels where a gang was excavating the narrow thoroughfare. Bressingham was rosy-cheeked and puffing. He hadn’t bothered to put on a coat. Chuckling and gasping, he staggered up to Gently, arms held out as though to embrace him.

  ‘Oh, my gosh. This beats everything. I’ve just stepped back two hundred years!’

  ‘Hold it!’ Gently laughed. ‘What have you discovered?’

  ‘Everything. The house – the legend – the coins.’

  ‘The coins?’

  ‘Yes. I can name you a couple of them. And the storeroom – I know all about that!’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘Aha! Ha, ha! Oh, my dear fellow, it’s an absolute masterpiece!’

  He grabbed Gently’s arm and began dragging him down Water Street, through snow that was lying shin-deep. The sweating roadmen leaned on their shovels to stare amazement at the capering dealer.

  ‘But the coins – this is fact?’

  ‘Yes! Yes! Oh gosh, they’ll be worth a king’s ransom!’

  ‘Look, tell me one thing—’

  ‘No, not a word. This you have to see for yourself!’

  They plunged into drifted snow in the shop’s courtyard and at last were stamping outside the door. Ursula Bressingham opened it to them. Her black eyes were smiling at her bubbling husband.

  ‘Come in, Superintendent. Tom’s a little bit fey.’

  ‘Good gosh, who wouldn’t be?’ Bressingham chortled.

  ‘Tom, you’re soaked.’

  ‘Oh, woman!’ – he danced impatiently into the shop.

  Ursula Bressingham dropped the latch, then accompanied them through the curtain at the back of the shop. They entered a pleasant, well lighted sitting-room with windows looking out on the mere. It was quietly furnished with modest antiques and had a big china-cabinet on the back wall. In the centre was an oval pedestal table with two calf-bound volumes lying on it. Bressingham danced to the table.

  ‘First, a little lecture.’

  ‘Please!’ Gently pleaded. ‘Just give me the facts.’

  ‘My dear fellow, you’d never appreciate them – not without knowing the whyfores first. Have you heard of Blomefield?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Allow me to present the reverend gent.’

  He picked up the larger of the two books from the table, ran his palm down the spine, then handed it to Gently.

  ‘There – Vol One of the first edition – Fersfield, 1739. An Essay towards a Topographical History of Northshire. Completed by Parkin, 1775.’

  ‘And this mentions Harrisons?’

  ‘Ha. Aha! No – that’s the point. It doesn’t mention it.’

  Gently groaned. ‘So what am I doing with it?’

  ‘Just getting some facts,’ Bressingham gurgled.

  ‘You’d better sit down, Superintendent,’ Ursula Bressingham said. ‘Tom isn’t going to let you off lightly. This is his big moment. He really has uncovered something. I’ll go and make a pot of coffee.’

  She swept out, with her strangely regal carriage, and Tom Bressingham darted to place a chair for Gently. Gently sighed and sat down. What did it matter? His other business that morning was scarcely urgent.

  Bressingham pulled up a chair to face Gently’s, sat, and beamed at the detective for a moment.

  ‘Now, Francis Blomefield. He was Vicar of Fersfield, that’s a village a few miles out. His book is a classic – everyone wants it. I could sell this copy for a hundred quid.’

  ‘Not to me,’ Gently grunted.

  ‘No, you old philistine!’ Bressingham chucked. ‘But if you lived in Northshire, or your family had lived here, then you’d be bidding me for the Blomefield. It’s quite fabulous. It covers every parish – records, pedigrees, inscriptions, brasses. As far as I know it has only one drawback – it’s about as readable as last year’s Bradshaw.’

  ‘Spare me the literary criticism,’ Gently said.

  ‘No, that’s what I can’t do.’ Bressingham grinned. ‘It all turns on that. It’s because Blomefield was boring that another gentleman tried his hand.’

  He picked up the second book and caressed it like the first.

  ‘An eighteenth-century popularizer,’ he said. ‘His notion was to give a résumé of Blomefield, plus some interesting tit-bits and current comment. The same carucates and frank-pledge stuff, and quotes from Domesday by the bucket – but along with snappy pars about invasion defences, fairs, water frolics and local characters. Easily outsold Blomefield of course, and consequently he’s not too scarce today.’

  ‘And you want to sell me one?’ Gently said.

  Bressingham twinkled at him, shaking his head.

  ‘But you could try young Peachment,’ he said. ‘He’s got a copy. Only don’t offer him more than fifty bob.’

  Gently went still.

  ‘That’s right,’ Bressingham nodded. ‘Ten vols. Armstrong’s History of Northshire. And I noticed Vol Two didn’t have any fluff on it.’

  He handed the second book to Gently.

  ‘Vol Two,’ he said.

  ‘Am I interrupting?’ Ursula Bressingham said, coming back just then with a tray.

  Bressingham giggled. ‘The Super’s just got the scent. I could leave it with him now, and he’d soon have the answer.’<
br />
  ‘In here,’ Gently said.

  ‘In there. One of Mr Armstrong’s gossipy asides. Look up Cross, under Cross Hundred – I’m not going to spoil it by giving you the page reference.’

  ‘Tom, you’re a tease,’ Ursula Bressingham said. ‘I’m sure the Superintendent is a very busy man.’

  ‘Oh, but not too busy for this,’ Bressingham giggled. ‘I want him to have the full, fantastic flavour.’

  Ursula Bressingham set down her tray and poured coffee from a pot which was probably white Worcester. Gently opened the book. It was laboriously printed on a fibrous laid paper, beginning to fox. It covered four hundreds or county divisions: Clavering, Depwade, Cross and Earsham. He turned to the Cross section and, after some thumbing, found an entry beginning: Cross, Croyse, or Cruce.

  Bressingham was watching with jiffling impatience.

  ‘Oh, never mind the early stuff, man!’ he burst out. ‘Skip all that stuff about Amazonian proud countesses, infangthef, waif and bread-and-ale.’

  ‘Aha,’ Ursula Bressingham said, handing coffee. ‘It was you who wanted him to have the full flavour.’

  ‘Oh, gosh, but there’s reams of it,’ Bressingham complained. ‘Just a dip or two is enough to set the scene.’

  Gently took his coffee and leafed on through heavy-pressed pages of irregular print. Strange, uncouth names caught his eye and words belonging to a forgotten language. He felt a curious helplessness, as though even where the language seemed plain he was not quite admitted to the full meaning. One was groping around in a nightmarish twilight peopled by half-monsters with half-human names. At last, this faded into a list of manors, church records, marbles, brasses, wills and charities, and then into untidy paragraphs and detached sentences about commons and streets and forgotten worthies.

  ‘Am I missing something?’

  ‘No – no!’ Bressingham was reading now over his shoulder. ‘You’re nearly there. Don’t miss a word. Keep reading from ‘‘Crofs is a neat compact town’’.’

  Gently read. This was certainly more interesting. Here Armstrong was mainly recording impressions. He gave a sharp impression of the Cross of his day, where the contaminated ‘Meer’ ‘stank exceedingly’. Dirtftreet was ‘properly enough fo called’ but the ftreets about the market were newly paved, and summing up he concluded that Cross was ‘one of the moft agreeable towns we have seen’. And that was Cross, Croyse or Cruce, apart from two biographical stop-presses. One was short and dealt with a John Spilwan. The other was longer. And it was a bomb.